Defender. Diana Palmer

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      “Oh, it wouldn’t have been so bad,” he said facetiously. “There’s a community college with a theatrical department,” he teased. “We could have asked somebody to write us a script, and we’d have performed it at every meal. He’d have gotten bored watching it all the time.”

      She burst out laughing. “Now, there’s a thought!”

      “Send Isabel out, could you? I need to talk to her.” He grimaced. “Just in case he put a bug in that I didn’t find, it’s safer out here. I’ll sweep the house again later.”

      “I’ll do it. Want Merrie, too?”

      “Just Isabel,” he said, smiling.

      “Okay.”

      * * *

      He paced between the light from the house and the distant fence and ranch gate that led to the stables. He was uneasy. He didn’t like being under surveillance, and he didn’t buy Darwin Grayling’s explanation of why it was necessary. He wondered if Darwin had learned about Sari’s visits to Paul’s room. He knew Mandy hadn’t sold him out, but what if there were other cameras and bugs that Paul didn’t know about? He was going to make a thorough search later.

      The back door opened. Sari came out, wearing a long blue-checked dress with a white blouse under it. The garment covered her from neck to ankles, but it fit in just the right places to give Paul an uncomfortable ache. She had pert little breasts and a narrow waist that led down to softly curving full hips and long legs. Her reddish-gold hair was piled on top of her head, curling wildly down from a ponytail clip, and her blue, blue eyes twinkled at him in the pale light from the house.

      “Mandy said you wanted to talk to me. Are we going to get bulletproof vests issued? Maybe a gun?” she teased.

      He shrugged. “Beats me. I feel like some of those guys used to on a show called Candid Camera. That’s before your time, tidbit,” he added with a grin.

      “It is not. I watch it on YouTube.”

      He shook his head.

      “Don’t knock it,” she chided. “All the best programming is on YouTube. I can watch shows from fifty years ago. I can travel all over the world in somebody’s backpack,” she added with a chuckle. “I was just touring the Incan ruins in Peru.”

      “I’d love to see that,” he mused. “I never miss an archaeological special on TV.”

      “Me, neither,” she agreed. “I used to think I’d get to see the sites in person one day, but Daddy says it’s too dangerous to let us travel outside the country.”

      “It probably is,” he said noncommittally.

      “So, what do you want to talk to me about?” she asked. She cocked her head. “Are you going to ask me to run away with you and live in sin somewhere in Kansas?”

      He was disconcerted. “Why Kansas?”

      “Well, it’s probably the last place on earth Daddy would think to look for us,” she sighed. She tilted her face up to his. “Sure you don’t want to run away with me? We could get jobs working in a convenience store and live on doughnuts and Slurpees.”

      He burst out laughing. “Honest to God, Isabel…!”

      “I like it when you laugh,” she observed, smiling. “You almost never do.”

      He sobered. “It doesn’t really go with the job description,” he said. He studied her quietly. “Your father has had me update all the security systems. He had the dining room bugged and you were on camera wherever you went that was in sight of the doors, except to the head.”

      “The who?”

      He scowled. “The head. Sorry. The bathroom.”

      “You said it was wired?” she asked worriedly.

      He nodded. “I wiped the recordings.”

      Sari was catching her breath. She’d been sitting on Paul’s bed…

      “I wiped everything,” he repeated. “Just in case there were bugs in other places besides in the dining room. I couldn’t be sure.”

      “Why was everything wired?” she wondered.

      “I’m not sure. He gave me some pretty wild reasons. But the only security cameras left are the two at the front and back doors and the ones on the outside. So you can still come bouncing into my room and sit on my bed in your pajamas.” He grinned. “As long as I make doubly sure he hasn’t put any hidden cameras or bugs up there.”

      “Oh, dear.” She glanced at him. “Imagine if Daddy saw that on YouTube,” she mused.

      “Then imagine me lying in a dark alley with parts missing,” he returned.

      “He wouldn’t dare,” she said simply. “I’d avenge you.”

      “Your allowance is a little over a hundred dollars a month. I think guys in ninja suits cost a bit more than that,” he mused, his dark eyes twinkling.

      “I’m saving up,” she promised.

      He chuckled and started walking back toward the house, hands in his pockets. “He says there’s a threat. Something external, and to do with someone he knows.”

      “That woman he sees,” Sari said. She looked up at Paul’s surprised expression. “Merrie and I know about her,” she added. “Her name is Betty Leeds. She came here once, driving a new Mercedes, all decked out in expensive clothes with a purse that cost more than my leather coat. She looked down her nose at me and Merrie, went into Daddy’s study with him and closed the door.”

      He frowned. “She can afford all that on a government salary?”

      She scowled. “I didn’t think about that. I don’t think the government pays salaried workers that much, and I overheard Daddy tell somebody that she worked in an office as an analyst or something.”

      He let out a breath. “Best not advertise that news, tidbit.”

      “I wouldn’t. Daddy has an unpredictable temper.” Her whole body went taut. “Neither of us wants to make him mad, ever.”

      He turned to her in the shadow of the porch, out of range of the security cameras. “Why are you afraid of him, honey?” he asked softly, his voice unconsciously tender.

      Sari’s heart jumped. She wasn’t used to endearments from anyone except Mandy. Paul never used them. She looked up at him with quiet, soft eyes, searching over his hard face. “He’s just volatile,” she hedged. “We never know how he’s going to react to anything we say. It’s almost like he’s two different people, especially when he has those dizzy spells.” She wrapped her arms around herself. “Merrie and I learned early not to make him mad.”

      “He wouldn’t really hurt you, would he?”

      “Oh, of course not,” she lied, managing a СКАЧАТЬ